[Received via email]
Dear Colleagues,
Thank you very much for signing the letter of support for a New England Canyons and Seamounts national monument, I greatly appreciate your dedication and involvement. I strongly believe that the permanent protection of deep sea habitats is essential to help them from future direct exploitation and degradation, plus will enhance performing scientific studies in them. This will be a good starting point for further protection of more deep water habitats in the Atlantic Ocean.
I will be sending the letter to the White House on September 14th, the day before NOAA holds a public town hall meeting in Providence (RI) (http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/advisories/090315-noaa-town-hall-meeting-new-england-deep-sea-canyons.html). Please note that at the present time NOAA has omitted from the preliminary proposed monument the Nygren and Heezen Canyons (the 2 outermost Canyons near the US EEZ boundary), which are included in our letter. If you have any comments in this regard, I strongly urge you to send them toatlanticconservation@noaa.gov, the webpage set by NOAA for public comments regarding the possible marine monument (all comments must be received before September 15th).
So far we have 90 signees, and I would like to increase that number between now and Monday the 14th. I believe this is partially due that my initial email was circulated in August, when many of our colleagues were on vacations or working in the field. I intend to re-send new emails tomorrow, and I ask for your forgiveness if you receiveagain petitions of support, I am sure that I will miss erasing some of your email addresses from my databases.
I will also urge you, if you know of any colleagues or friends that have not yet signed this petition but may be supportive, to directly encourage them to do so ASAP by sending an email to me (sanchog@cofc.edu) or Ryan Bidwell (ryan@conservationlands.org) with their name, title and affiliation. At this point all we are asking is that they have a PhD title, work in marine or environmental sciences, and are not directly employed by the US federal government. I am attaching the original letter so you can share it with your friends/colleagues. I would really like to see our number of signees surpass 150 by next Monday.
Thank you again for your support,
Cheers,
Gorka Sancho
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Gorka Sancho
Professor
Department of Biology
Grice Marine Laboratory
College of Charleston
205 Fort Johnson Rd
Charleston, SC 29412
sanchog@cofc.edu
http://www.cofc.edu/~sanchog/
tel- (843) 953 9194; fax- (843) 953 9199
